Australopithecus Sediba could be direct ancestor of Homo
Wednesday, April 20, 2011 - 12:00
in Paleontology & Archaeology
(PhysOrg.com) -- Last year Lee Berger from the University of the Witwatersrand and his team discovered the skeletal remains of two specimens they determined to be a new species of human called Australopithecus sediba. The skeletons had characteristics of previous species of Australopithecus, but also of Homo, leading the researchers to believe they may have found an evolutionary connection between the two. This became a very controversial idea, with many believing there was no connection to Homo and that what they had discovered was really an ancestor of later Homo species.